i look around and see pain,
“where’s god in this mess?”
the world is filled with grief,
cancer, death, and loneliness.

we’re weary, disheartened,
it’s too much to bear.
we’re laden with sorrow,
it doesn’t seem fair.

o Lord lift our eyes!

to him in HIS moment of grief.
lift our eyes to him on that tree.
how laden and weary,
could one human be?

how broken, disheartened,
do you see in his eyes?
pained beyond belief,
could you hear in his cries?

yet worst of all he bore,
separation from god for our sin.
a loneliness in grief
because he chose to enter in.

yet it’s in this very moment,
his forsakenness secured guarantee,
that even in our suffering
we will never be.

left alone up there on the cross,
no response to his cries.
he bled, broke, and died.
o Lord lift our eyes!

do you see the tomb,
empty and bare?
they looked for him, cried,
but he wasn’t there.

we despair of life’s pain,
ask “how can we cope?”
yet if christ has been raised,
we have reason to hope.

if christ has been raised,
there’s hope yet for you.
his life is our own;
his victory too.

this guarantee we have,
this reason for cheer,
means nothing, no nothing
should lead us to fear.

he forever secured,
in life, death, resurrection.
our never-forsakenness,
our soon-coming redemption.